Wire in the Blood
by Ski-Ming
Summary: It's getting dark downtown, and Angela walked out on her ride home.


Wire in the Blood_  
by Ski-Ming_

Disclaimer: _The Outsiders _and_ That Was Then, This Is Now_ and all of their characters are the property of S.E. Hinton and various publishers and media distributors.

Author's notes: This is a flashfic!

There are a couple of lines of T. S. Eliot's _The Waste Land_ in the story; the title is also from Eliot (_Burnt Norton_). And yes, I'm aware that it's also the title of a British mystery series; if anyone knows it, please let me know. I need somebody to fangirl/-boy over Robson Green with me. _Une Femme est une femme _really is, by the way, one of my favorite French New Wave films.

As always, reviews are always welcomed.

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We should boycott women who don't cry.

– Angéla in Jean-Luc Godard's _Une Femme est une femme _(A Woman is a Woman)  
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Saturday afternoon Angela goes to the movie house downtown with a guy named Kenneth von Trout. He swears that is his real name, but Angela doesn't buy it. She calls him Ken. He goes to the University of Tulsa and seems to love reminding Angela of what a smart guy he is – he talks a lot about things she doesn't understand, but he's cute when he shuts up. Which is rare.

"It's so refreshin' to see a foreign movie without all that dubbing-over! This is really special," he exclaims as they walk into the theater. "Anyway, this film is classic French New Wave. Godard is my favorite director."

He says it like Angela knows what that means, or cares at all to find out.

The movie doesn't really make any sense. Angela likes that the main character is also named Angela, so a bunch of good-looking French men say her name over and over. But everything that happens seems really pointless; as far as Angela can tell, the people just talk a lot and act like they're on dope. Sometimes they sing but it's like they're not meant to. Angela's bored out of her mind; and the weird thing is, it appears that Ken goes to the movies to actually watch the show.

Angela walks out halfway through.

It occurs to her that Ken probably won't jump to drive her home now. Tim's been away for a couple of days now, and damned if she'll call her mother – or worse, her stepfather. Angela wanders past the beautiful stores until she finds a bus stop with a line she recognizes. Since it's a weekend schedule, she's stuck for another forty minutes. The sun's going down, and Angela's not crazy about being in a strange part of town at night; but then, she doesn't really have much of a choice.

Angela plops down onto the bench, but after the second carload of wolf-whistling boys goes by she decides to get out of the open.

She's from what's thought of as the rough side of town; but the fancy buildings and fancy people are a hell of a lot more intimidating than anything in her neighborhood.

She goes into Saks Fifth Avenue, but the man at the doorway keeps his eye on her so she can't take anything. She looks at the jewelry until the saleslady starts paying attention to her, too.

Angela takes the escalator up to the second floor, which has all the high fashion. In Angela's opinion, you'd have to be high to think some of that stuff is fashion. The only thing she likes is the rack of Mary Quant miniskirts. She watches an old lady – she's got to be like forty – finger the material of one of the skirts. No way her legs would look as good in that skirt as Angela's.

Angela looks good today. Her blouse is tight across the chest but hides the little pudgy tummy that she can never diet away, and her skirt doesn't cheat her legs out of any attention. Coats and cardigans are for frigid girls. It's not too humid tonight, so her hair isn't frizzy at all. Angela looks down on those girls who work too hard to get their hair in perfect curls – hair looks better when left a little to chance. When she was getting ready earlier in the bathroom she shares with her entire family, she caught Curly staring at her through the crack in the door.

She's gotten worse from her stepfather, so it didn't creep her out that much. Angela's a tough girl; she knows the score. Boys are boys, even if they are your stupid brother.

Angela knows about the boys from her neighborhood. Her own goddamn friends wet their panties for her own goddamn _brothers_. Because to girls, Angela thinks, the scars and the knives and the leather jackets mean good sex, rough sex, the kind where you don't get hacked off at the boy for treating you like you'll break under his weight. Because being used is kind of hot, in a way. Because when their every sense is heightened by fear, they think that's what being alive is all about.

Angela prefers when boys look at her like she's …

– Angela likes boys who read books.

Angela leaves the department store just in time to watch the back end of her bus take off.

"Shit!" she curses.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth, Angel?"

Angela whirls around. Bryon Douglas is leaning against the window of Saks. She thinks that can't be a good idea; surely he'll crack the glass. But it holds.

"What are you doing here?" she says.

"Got bored of the Ribbon," he replies. "You wanna go somewhere?"

"Yeah – away from you," Angela says. "You don't even got a car."

"Yeah, but Mark does. He's lettin' me borrow it," he says. "Let's go for a ride. Hurry up please, it's time. If you don't like it you can get on with it."

"What?"

"Forget it. Come on."

"Don't you ever tell me what to do," Angela tells him.

Ken treated her like she would actually be interested in foreign waves or whatever that was. Like she was good enough to be talked to.

Then again, Ken was kind of a queer.

"Suck it up, princess," Bryon says carelessly. Like he thinks she's supposed to get off on being treated like dirt, like nothing.

But she does. She's pulsing with electricity, down to the last goddamn nerve. As they walk to the car, Bryon lights two cigarettes at the same time – which is, admittedly, kind of sexy – and hands her one, and she accepts it. She breathes in.


End file.
